


Trying Hard to Take it Back

by inkasrain



Category: Gentleman Bastard Sequence - Scott Lynch
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 16:42:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkasrain/pseuds/inkasrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Locke and Jean bide their time in Tal Verrar, missing opportunities and forging better ones while important understandings are reached. A prequel of sorts to the present-tense events of "Red Seas Under Red Skies".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trying Hard to Take it Back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [just_ann_now](https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_ann_now/gifts).



> Dear Ann,
> 
> Happy Christmas! I hope you enjoy this fic, and that your holidays are brilliant and beautiful!
> 
> All my best,  
> Your Yuletide Author

**I**

“I’m fine,” Jean insisted, putting a hand out to the wall to support himself. The big man was grey-faced and beads of sweat bloomed on his brow, catching in the candlelight. Jean squinted around the sparse little room in an odd, confused way, as though he could not quite trust the world to remain where he expected it to be. “Locke, I’m perfect... perfectly fine.”

“Like hell you are,” Locke said, grimacing. “You’re fucking sick, Jean. You’re even sweatier than usual--”

“It’s hot in here.”

“It’s Festal, Jean. The water in the basin’s been frozen for three days, and you look like a wooden doll that Aza Guilla’s been playing with for too long.”

Jean considered this description for a moment. “The Lady doesn’t play with dolls,” he said, beginning to slump straight out against the wall. “I think...” he swallowed. “I think I’d know.”

“And _I_ think she’d make an exception for you,” Locke said. “Lie down, Jean. Voleste... Voleste will keep.”

“But--”

“ _Down_ ,” said Locke, stern as schoolmaster. “I’ll tip you over myself, if I have to.”

He didn’t have to. Jean snorted in a brave and unwise attempt at derision, and then his eyes widened with the unmistakable flare of dire nausea.

The water in the basin did not stay frozen for very long.

 

**II**

At dinner (a fishy stew served with an artful tower of bacon and dried fruit, in which Locke had taken special pride) Chains had set them their task. They were to work in pairs-- the Sanzas together against Locke and Jean, the latter of whom had not ventured beyond the steps of Perelanandro’s temple since he had first arrived there. All four boys reacted with practiced equanimity, though Callo and Galdo’s eyes gleamed with identical promises of hell from across the laden table.

“It’s not fair,” Locke explained to Chains later, with what he considered unassailable logic. “Jean’s _new_.”

The false priest tilted his brandy toward Locke in mock salute. “Is that so?”

“And Callo and Galdo, they’re almost one person.”

“And you think,” Chains drawled, “That this puts you at a disadvantage.” He took another savoring sip of brandy, an Austershalin vintage so fine, Locke had only been allowed a sniff. His nose still tingled. “And that said disadvantage would be...”

He quirked a heavy eyebrow at Locke.

“Unfair,” Locke answered, a sinking feeling in his gut.

“Ah.” Another long, slow swallow. “Un _fair_. An interesting twist of phrasery, Locke. Coming from you most especially.”

Locke kept his mouth closed.

“Many things in this life are unfair,” Chains continued. “Parents die. Twins are born. Criminals roam the streets of Camorr, and our dearest friends are sent away without a hint of warning. Cruel, random, terrible. Isn’t it, Locke?”

Locke’s face felt hot under the dim alchemical lighting; the priest’s eyes bored into his own.

“And a good thing too,” Chains said, “Or there would be no need for Perelandro to sit in comforting witness to the fuckery of the world, and you and I would be left without this temple in which we so deftly reside.”

Locke opened his mouth to protest the evident difference and clamped his teeth over his bottom lip before his tongue could dig him a deeper grave.

Chains’s eyes gleamed.

“You’re learning, Locke,” he said. “And you may blossom into a magnificent bastard one day, if you are entirely lucky. But your estimation of what is fair and what is not isn’t worth the price of an orphan’s toenail on Shade’s Hill. _Fair_ is what I say it is, unless the gods say otherwise.”

Chains ignored Locke then for the next few minutes, silently savoring the rest of the Austershalin. Locke sat perfectly still, suspended in an oddly serene stasis between anger and calculation.

“You need Jean,” Chains said finally, very quietly. His usual rumble was a husky whisper, but the intensity remained. “More than you need Callo, or Galdo, or Sabetha. Yes,” he said, answering Locke’s infinitesimal twitch. “More than Sabetha. And that’s not fair, Locke; but it’s very fucking lucky indeed.”

 

**III**

“What’s that smell?” Jean groaned from the bed. He had drifted into a fitful, sweaty sleep scarcely an hour ago, and Locke had seized his opportunity.

“Broth,” he answered, stirring the small pot bubbling on the cooking stone, both of which had been recently relieved of their previous ownership. Locke paused, considering. “Or your own effluvia.”

“How you can you tell the difference?” Jean muttered, twisting himself further into the sparse tangle of blankets on the narrow cot.

Locke snorted, continuing to stir the mixture as he poured it into a small mug. “I’ll excuse that on account of your understandably frail state of mind, Jean.” He guided the larger man into a seated crouch, pushing the mug into his hands. “I could cook you off the edge of Raven’s Reach, as you well know.”

Jean gave a shivering shrug and sipped obediently from Locke’s concoction. His lip twisted in a grimace. “Back in Camorr, maybe,” he said, voice strained. “Your culinary skills are the only thing about you not improved by desperation, Locke.” He paused. “What the fuck is in this broth?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Locke advised archly, but he chuckled. “It was the work of a desperate man.”

“I can tell.”

But Jean’s color was better when he had pulled down the last of Locke’s concoction-- free of any further comment or speculation-- and laid back down on the lumpy bed. Locke emptied the basin of sick out the window into the muck-floored alley below and grinned at the sudden disgruntled squawks of stray chickens which echoed up in response. Rubbing his hands together from the cold, he snuffed out the candle and and crouched by the cooling cooking stone.

“What’s our next move, Locke?” Jean asked from behind him, hoarse but intent. “Voleste will be gone by tomorrow night, and the whole game goes to shit without her making the introduction.”

“Let’s not worry about it.”

“We spent weeks on that first touch.”

“I know, Jean.”

A heavy sigh from behind him; the wooden bedframe creaked as Jean rose unsteadily. “We don’t belong here, Locke,” he said. “Slums and alleys, little games? This isn’t what we’re meant for.”

“You sound like Chains.”

Jean snorted. “I know. But sometimes I think you get lost in this. That you forget what we used to have.”

Locke considered that for a long moment. He opened his mouth to answer, but Jean groaned suddenly and groped for the basin.

~

“I haven’t forgotten,” Locke said, very quietly, after the retching had stopped and he had settled Jean back into bed. “But sometimes... sometimes it’s hard to understand why we want it back so badly.”

 

**IV**

Locke was twenty feet up in the air and halfway across the Mara Camorazza before he realized that he was alone.

“Shit,” he said.

Poised on a narrow, tilting rooftop like an overgrown sparrow, Locke swiveled in a careful crouch to scan the distance behind him. Roofs rippeled behind him, slate and wood and thatch, a slapdash sea divided by slim dunes of Elderglass rearing up like spiney fingers across the district. For all of its disorganization, the view was breathtaking in its way; it was also utterly lost on Locke, who had eyes only for the setting sun and a maddeningly absent partner.

“Shit, _shit_ , shit,” he hissed into the evening air, the only response the fleeting glare of a raven perched nearby.

Down he climbed from the rooftop, swinging from splintered beams and ragged rooftops. Locke’s fingers were full of splinters when he landed bruisingly on his ass in the alley below, but he shook the pain away and made for the grimy road which loosely linked the district’s alleyways.

He found Jean edging slowly along the edge of the road, pale as the sharks beneath the bay, his hands bloody. Jean’s eyes were glued to floor of the alley, plotting every step as though it were an elaborate lie. He did not see Locke approach.

“Crooked Warden, Jean!” Locke hissed. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

He reached out and grabbed his disappointing partner by the shoulder. Jean’s head snapped up, eyes orblike with pain, and then he screamed, really _screamed_ , a haunting wail of agony. This being the Mara Camorrazza, the noise received little reaction, but for the briefest moment Locke imagined that it would be the sound of Elderglass shattering-- if such a thing were possible.

The thought left him as he noticed the first glimmers of Falselight rising around them.

“What is the _matter_ with you?” he demanded again, furiously, as Jean slumped against the wall.

“I... I fell, Locke,” the bigger boy gasped; he was breathing hard. “Off one of the roofs. You didn’t notice.”

Locke squinted at the memory of a distant squawk behind him as he raced across the city, but there was no time; he said as much to Jean. “We have to _go_ ,” he snapped. “You heard Chains, if Callo and Galdo win it’s no dinner tonight, and then cook, set, _and_ serve for a month. Can’t you walk?”

Jean’s mouth settled in a grim line. “I don’t know,” he said stiffly. “I think something’s broken. And my hands are bleeding.”

“So are mine,” Locke retorted. “But I’m not going to serve the Sanzas for a month over a few splinters. Come _on_.” He ducked under Jean’s shoulder and began to walk; he could feel the other boy tremble.

“We... we won’t make it,” Jean said, mustering as much flat disdain as was possible for a boy sweating in pain, most of his weight supported by a smaller boy.

“Yes, we will,” Locke replied. “Yes, we fucking will.”

 

**V**

They didn’t make it.

The Sanzas giddy laughter still echoed in Locke’s ears as he lay in his darkened room, hunger nibbling at his stomach. He had indeed received no dinner when he and Jean arrived back at the temple, limping, pale, and-- in Locke’s case-- fuming. Jean had been allowed to eat though, once Chains had seen the state of him; his evening without dinner was delayed until Chains “judged it productive.”

The false priest’s judgement was not something Locke thought highly of, at the moment.

The door creaked open then, and Locke burrowed deeper into his soft cot, muffling his angry shame in the darkness. “Go away, Callo,” he spat, in response to light footsteps on the Elderglass floor.

“Callo is at my dinner table, sleeping the sleep of the well-imbibed.” Chains chuckled darkly. “And I am not he, thank the Crooked Warden.”

“I hope his head pounds for a week,” Locke muttered, as Chains settled into a nearby chair with a grace which still surprised Locke.

“That would be a shame,” said Chains. “We wouldn’t want him to miss any of your adventurous upcoming cookery, would we?”

Locke scowled.

“You’ll have to make do on your own for a few days,” Chains continued. “As young Master Tannen is confined to his bed until midweek.”

“I thought he would be,” Locke said, coldly. “He’s soft. He’s the reason I was late, whimpering and whining all the way home.”

Chains eyed Locke carefully for a long moment. “Indeed,” he said. “Two cracked ribs and a dislocated shoulder; I had to call in a physicker, and you know how loathe I am to take such measures.”

Locke glared at the priest; the big man’s eyes gleamed from the shadows.

“I’ve had worse,” Locke muttered. “And no physickers ever came around Shade’s Hill.”

“Ah,” Chains replied. “That, of course, is true. But this points us to a fascinating little quirk of yours, Locke. You exhibit a curious disregard for physical unpleasantries; I imagine you would have simply buggered your stubborn Lamora way back up those rooftops and arrived back early. And then you would have dropped dead of a burst liver, but you would have died a happy winner, at least.”

“Yes,” said Locke. “I mean--”

“No,” Chains said, with unnerving patience. “That is exactly right. Pain is an indulgence to you, Locke Lamora, as are, I suspect, many other unpleasant necessities which facilitate our continued presence among the living.”

Locke shook his head, baffled. “Pain... it’s just pain, Chains. It just hurts.” He began to tease at the splinters dotting his fingers, nearly forgotten. “That’s no reason to...”

“To sulk in one’s room like a Duke’s daughter with a soiled dress? My thoughts _exactly_ , Locke.”

Locke glared at the older man. “I don’t understand.”

Chains sighed then, deflating ever so slightly into the darkness. “Some day, Locke Lamora, you will encounter something-- or someone, or knowing you, _several_ some-things and ones-- that will overwhelm you. They will invade your senses, paralyze your mind, freeze your marrow and stifle your thoughts; everything that pain does to ordinary people, who have lived more easily and with less fucking stupidity than you have. Like Jean, for example.”

Locke grimaced, but said nothing.

“And when that happens,” Chains leaned forward slightly, eyes boring into Locke’s, “You will know what Jean felt in that alley today, and you had best pray to each and every god you meet that you have someone to force an arm under your shoulder and drag you screaming back home.”

Chains’ gaze was an iron thing; Locke, unfortified as he was by any dinner, cringed.

“I’ll remember,” he said. “I will.”

“Remembering is easy,” Chains said quietly. “It’s understanding I’m concerned with, Locke Lamora. See that you are, too.”

The false priest rose, stretching to his full towering height above Locke. “I’ll... I’ll bring Jean some, some broth, Chains,” Locke said, still disquieted. “Or, er...”

“Flowers?” Chains suggested. “Broth can wait, Locke. Distasteful though I find the role of messenger pigeon, it is this--” Chains twitched a slip of paper from an unseen place-- ”Which more pressingly requires your attention.”

He let the paper drift down to the bed from his fingers, and stepped spryly to the door.

“What is it?” Locke called after him, fumbling for a match to raise the alchemical lighting.

A grin sliced across Chains’ craggy face, aimed at Locke over his shoulder. “Menus,” he said. “One exquisite month’s worth of menus.”

 

**VI**

The morning light of Tal Verrar had set the small room to glowing when Locke returned, letting the ragged wooden door bang shut behind him. “Good morning, Jean,” he said brightly. “Feeling well, I hope?”

Jean blinked sleep from his eyes, groggy, but not unpleasantly so. A small alchemical hearth (a mysterious addition of the previous night) gave off a steady warmth beside the bed, and the scent of fresh bread wafted invitingly towards him.

“Considerably less dire, in fact,” Jean said, sitting up carefully. “Almost invigorated, actually.” He cast Locke a mock-suspicious glance. “What _was_ in that soup you fed me, Lamora?”

Locke grinned. “Call it... _understanding_. I had a helping myself.” He tossed a crusty loaf across the room, which Jean caught, inhaling the scent like a it was a lover’s perfume.

“Is that so?” said Jean, his mouth full. “Understanding all around, then.”

“Exactly.”

Jean watched Locke as they ate. The streaming sun seemed to snag in Locke’s nondescript hair and catch in his ordinary eyes; for a moment, it seemed to Jean as though his friend were incandescent, though whether with genius or folly, he couldn’t tell. _Probably both._

“Tell me, Jean,” Locke said, producing a small bottle of light golden wine which Jean knew they could not-- currently-- afford. “How would you like to look down from the top of the Sinspire?”

“Just as long as we don’t topple off,” Jean said evenly, accepting a tumbler of the wine. He sipped with nonchalance, as Chains had taught them, but a spark of excitement had begun to smolder in his gut.

Locke grinned again, as wide as Jean had ever seen. “Oh, we won’t fall,” he promised, and drained his glass.

“We’re going to fly.”


End file.
